from the watching-the-watchers-watching-themselves dept

Drones: they're a thing. They were once reserved for the military to use to remote control the fiery death of scary people most of us have never met, some of whom may occasionally, ahem, be, you know, American or whatever. Now all kinds of commercial applications are being explored for these sky-borne death-machines, like getting me my damned tacos delivered through the sky, the way God intended. Well, the FAA went all crazy-pants over the idea of businesses using UAVs, which was followed by the NTSB ruling that the FAA had no jurisdiction over commercial drones. Following an FAA appeal, the agency then decided to claim that drones were only for fun, not profit. You know, like sex.

That brings us to today, where we get to read news about the FAA investigating the use of a drone to take sky-recordings of the wedding of a US Congressman who sits on the subcommittee that oversees the FAA.

The agency's carefully worded statement doesn't mention Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., by name, but said it was looking into "a report of an unmanned aircraft operation in Cold Spring, New York, on June 21 to determine if there was any violation of federal regulations or airspace restrictions."

Maloney has acknowledged hiring a photographer to produce a video of his wedding using a camera mounted on a small drone. The wedding took place in Cold Spring on June 21. Maloney is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's aviation subcommittee, which oversees the FAA.

Well, if the NTSB can't get the FAA to calm the hell down about minor commercial uses of drones, darkening the memories of a congressman's wedding with a pointless investigation sure as hell might. Particularly when that congressman is directly involved in overseeing said FAA. Boys, you may just have bit off a little more than you can chew.

And this all comes off as particularly silly, given that this particular drone is the increasingly common small helicopter with a video recorder attached to it. The chances that this thing is going to interfere with airborne Boeings seem, shall we say, slim.

"On their wedding day, Sean and Randy were focused on a ceremony 22 years in the making, not their wedding photographer's camera mounted on his remote control helicopter," Stephanie Formas, spokeswoman for Maloney, said in a statement. Formas, citing the judge's ruling, said there was "no enforceable FAA rule" or regulation that applied to "a model aircraft like the helicopter used in the ceremony."

I rather expect that point to be driven home at an upcoming subcommittee meeting.

from the the-tacocopter-may-be-grounded-yet-again dept

Late last week, we wrote about an NTSB ruling that said the FAA has no mandate over commercial drones. Apparently, the FAA will not take this attack on its perceived powers lying down, and has announced that it will file an appeal, asking the full NTSB board to review. Along with this, comes the usual hyperbole from the FAA about how if this ruling isn't stayed, it "could impact the safe operation of the national airspace system and the safety of people and property on the ground." While it may make sense for there to be some clear rules for how these things work, frankly the fact that commercial drone use has been totally grounded until now while a bunch of bureaucrats battle it out seems like a complete waste of time when useful experiments and innovation could be progressing.

from the let's-get-this-going... dept

Almost exactly two years ago, we wrote about the tacocopter, a sort of proof of concept idea for using drones to deliver products to people's homes. Yes, Amazon got some attention last year for claiming to be working on something similar, but the Tacocopter (and Lobstercopter on the east coast) idea was the first I'd heard of anyone seriously thinking about commercial-use drones. However, the key point of our Tacocopter story was that they were illegal:

Current U.S. FAA regulations prevent ... using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, like drones] for commercial purposes at the moment.

Well, that's no longer the case apparently. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) administrative law judge Patrick Geraghty has unleashed the tacocopters of the world by issuing a ruling that the FAA has no mandate to regulate commercial drones. The case involved the first time that the FAA had actually tried to fine someone, a guy named Raphael Pirker, $10,000 for trying to film a commercial with a drone at the University of Virginia.

The issue, basically, is that the FAA has historically exempted model airplanes from its rules, and the NTSB finds it impossible to square that with its attempt to now claim that drones are under its purview. As Geraghty notes, accepting that leads to absurd arguments about the FAA's mandate over all flying objects:

Complainant has, historically, in their policy notices, modified the term "aircraft" by prefixing the word "model", to distinguish the device/contrivance being considered. By affixing the word "model" to "aircraft" the reasonable inference is that Complainant FAA intended to distinguish and exclude model aircraft from either or both of the aforesaid definitions of "aircraft".

To accept Complainant's interpretive argument would lead to a conclusion that those definitions include as an aircraft all types of devices/contrivances intended for, or used for, flight in the air. The extension of that conclusion would then result in the risible argument that a flight in the air of, e.g., a paper aircraft, or a toy balsa wood glider, could subject the "operator" to the regulatory provisions of FAA Part 91, Section 91.13(a)....

..... The reasonable inference is not that FAA has overlooked the requirements, but, rather that FAA has distinguished model aircraft as a class excluded from the regulatory and statutory definitions.

The judge notes that while the FAA had some internal memorandum about these issues, it did not put forth a full rule, and thus it is not an actual policy. As a result, the ruling finds that the current definition of aircraft is not applicable here and thus the FAA has no real mandate over this kind of drone.

This does not preclude the FAA from trying to go through a full rule-making process to try to gain a mandate over commercial drone use, but that will involve a big political fight. It's way easier to block something like that from becoming official than overturning it if it was already deemed the law.

from the damaged-whose-reputation? dept

By now you've probably already heard about how the local Fox affiliate here in the Bay Area of California last week broadcast what it apparently believed were the names of the four pilots on the Asiana Air plane that crashed on landing at San Franciso Airport a week ago.

Almost everyone I've spoken to about this is stunned that no one realized these were obviously fake, racist names. You could maybe see one of them getting through, but all four? And it's not like this is in an area without a large Asian population. Nearly 25% of the population in this region is of Asian heritage. You'd think someone would have caught that these were fake before it went on air. But, no one did. If you haven't seen the video of the newscaster reading out those names, it's really quite incredible:

As you might imagine, KTVU quickly apologized, blaming the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who it insisted had confirmed the names. At first the NTSB insisted that it had nothing to do with it, saying that "we do not release names" ever. However, a few hours later, the NTSB was forced to issue a statement apologizing, and saying that a summer intern, who was acting way, way, way outside the scope of his authority, had confirmed the names:

Earlier today, in response to an inquiry from a media outlet, a summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority when he erroneously confirmed the names of the flight crew on the aircraft.

The NTSB does not release or confirm the names of crewmembers or people involved in transportation accidents to the media. We work hard to ensure that only appropriate factual information regarding an investigation is released and deeply regret today's incident.

Appropriate actions will be taken to ensure that such a serious error is not repeated.

Of course, the NTSB has also said that the names "originated" with KTVU and that the intern was "trying to be helpful." Either way, the end result was pretty clear: KTVU (and, to some extent, the NTSB) were quickly mocked widely online.

Asiana said Monday that it will sue a San Francisco TV station that damaged the airline's reputation by using bogus and racially offensive names for four pilots on a plane that crashed earlier this month in San Francisco.

Yes, the use of those names was racist and offensive. And, yes, it was absolutely ridiculous that it made it on the air. But it's almost as ridiculous to then file a lawsuit over such a thing. Asiana is going to have one hell of a time proving any "damage" to the airline's reputation from that report, as opposed to, I don't know, the actual crash landing. It seems that Asiana's reputation is already hurt, but not because of any fake names, but rather for its inability to properly land an airplane.

The whole reason the names became a story was that basically everyone who didn't work at KTVU knew they were fake and offensive names. No one actually thought that they were real. There was no damage done to Asiana from those names being used. The damage was to KTVU's credibility (not to mention the credibility of whoever hires summer interns at the NTSB). KTVU and the NTSB have both apologized, and Asiana should focus on making sure its pilots can land their planes rather than suing over this.